


Dreams and Nightmares

by Kaesa



Series: Founders of Hogwarts [8]
Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Angst, Backstory, Challenge Response, Community: hp100, Drabble Sequence, Humor, Introspection, Meta, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-03 00:25:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaesa/pseuds/Kaesa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eight Founders drabbles around the theme "dream."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreams and Nightmares

** Necessity and Invention **

Basil Hufflepuff had been good at asking inconvenient questions. Then he'd been bitten by a werewolf, and work as a Dark creature hunter and duelist had become scarce.

He still had the knack, though. He generally asked things like what on earth they needed a school for.

Helga had stock answers. "Because it's _necessary,_" she'd say, which was truthful. "It's good advertisement for my plants," she'd add.

Of course, she didn't say "Because maybe, if you can teach someone else how to duel, you'll stop acting all bloody _tragic_ about not being allowed anymore."

He never did work it out.

 

 

** Revenge Fantasies **

Helga dreamt of monsters. She dreamt of revenge.

She dreamt, mainly, of plants.

She wasn't a vengeful person, really -- when life was being unpleasant, she just threw herself into her work.

It rather showed in the thousands of little red Venus Mantrap seedlings she had carefully raised to adulthood. The Venomous Tentacula, as well, had a certain predatory charm.

But the Whomping Willows were her masterpiece. Immense, flexible branches, mobilized instantly to crush an enemy's skull, to choke the life out of an invader, to shake a trespasser to pieces.

She cried when they had to be cut down.

 

**Subtext?  Buttsex?**

The real world terrified Rowena. How could so many people be oblivious to the joys of Homer? The overblown additions of Virgil? The unspoken love of Aeneas and Patroclus?

She resolved to teach people to read, write and do charms. In Greek, if possible, but French and Latin would do in a pinch.

(...perhaps it wasn't _that_ obvious.)

The Muggle servants thought she'd lost her mind when she'd suggested reading.

(Achilles was a bastard anyway.)

So she stuck to wizards and witches. And then came the school.

She was terribly disappointed when nobody agreed with her interpretation of the _Iliad._

_   
_

**Ghosts **

Rowena didn't sleep well.

First it'd been nightmares about hellfire and brimstone. Neither were real, so they shouldn't bother her. But they did.

After her husband died, it had been losing her magic again, and her husband coming to haunt her. Ghosts, she resolved, were also not real, and anyone who suggested otherwise was shouted at.

Then it'd been the Inferi -- the ones they'd had to fight during the interlude with the vampire.

Lately it'd been a sort of terrifying mishmosh of all three.

Guilt was a bitch. Before she went to sleep, she tried to concentrate on puppies.

 

**There's No I in Teamwork! **

Since his father had been killed, Lord Slytherin had been trying to regain the Chiefdom of the Wizards' Council.

So when the current Chief's estranged daughter Rowena was looking for a place to start a school, how could he say no? She had an herbologist -- the one who'd done his castle's defenses -- and had _nearly_ managed to get a transfigurator.

Maybe he could get one of them onto the Council?

He could kill Ophelia. Rowena would inherit automatically. No, too risky. They might not be _that_ estranged.

Well, he'd just have to meet them. They sounded very useful.

 

**Politics, However... **

From afar, Salazar's endless political war with Council Chief Ophelia Aeaeae was yet another ridiculous political impracticality. It was difficult to decide which was the _lesser_ of evils.

He meant well. He had reasons.

His father, fallen mysteriously ill when Ophelia was visiting. His sister Arantxa, who'd written depressing poetry, but couldn't have jumped, and _must_ have been pushed. (Her betrothed had married Ophelia.) His wife Ceridwen, who had gone out to try and _reason_ with the goblins against his will -- and with the Council Chief's help.

Like all politicians, Salazar was selfish. He was, after all, only human. 

 

** Spontaneous Human Combustion and the Science of Transfiguration **

Godric's usual method of learning transfiguration was trial and error. He tried. Something burst into flames, indicating an error.

He got to be quite good at it. He knew when something would burst into flames, and when it would change into what he needed it to be.

But only the mad attempted to become Animagi. And none had succeeded since some time before the Roman Empire had become Holy. Trial and error wouldn't work if you could only try it once before you spontaneously combusted. He needed time. He needed money. He needed books. He needed _food._

Then came Hogwarts.

 

** Abject Terror **

Godric had never actually known what he was doing.

He liked the children. The teaching was far more rewarding than what he'd been doing before. And the room and board was definitely a step up.

But what was he _doing?_ He was totally, _blitheringly_ incompetent. _Why_ were they saying he was the best transfigurator in Europe? Were they mad? Or just being nice?

And suddenly, at his desk, he came to a terrifying realization. They were right.

"God save us all," he muttered, and went back to marking papers, in hopes that someday one of his students would best him.


End file.
